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Greg Green sends more information on Peggy and Jimmy Lambert:

Hello, I am sending an email in response to this web page I found when looking through the Greens Family tree.

Reading about Peggy Lambert and Jimmy Lambert who are my Great, Great Grandparents on my father side.

It was exciting to read this family history that you have posted in your Mudgee History web site. My father Edward born in 1931 and currently residing in the suburb of Ashbury Sydney. He will be excited to find out more about his history as both his parents died of TB when he was very young his father died in 1937 and his mother died in 1938 in Kandos. My father became an orphan and then was looked by some families in Lithgow and later bought him to Newton, Sydney to live and grow up.

My Father is Edward Leon Green of Kandos son of Gerard James Green and wife Daisy Willermina Smith.

Gerad James Green was son of George William Green and wife Frances Adeline Halloran.

George William Green was son of John Green and wife Rose Lambert.

Rose Lambert was daughter of Jimmy Lambert and Wife Peggy Lambert.We would appreciate any other history that you could enlighten us with on our family tree.

Wiradjuri Nation: Dabee Aboriginal Tribe, P.4a

This article is submitted to us by Mickel Cowie.

Mickel went to primary school at Charbon in 1939-42 and has since been a regular visitor since then to Rylstone; Kandos & Dunns Swamp and maintained contact with friends in the area and keenly interested in the history of the area.

He is of Aboriginal descent through his maternal Madge Green (Lambert) line and the GGG Grandson of Peggy Lambert. Michael says he is an Australian of Scot; Irish and Aboriginal descent.

Greetings

I have recently enjoyed reading your local history site on Jimmy and Peggy Lambert and delighted to see the photos of Jimmy’s breastplate and Peggy’s sash. (To view this story, click here.)

However there is a minor error in connecting Jimmy Lambert and Bonegarley. Jimmy was not chief of Yerromum Plains Bonegarley. This is probably sourced from the biographical papers of Robert Fitzgerald (1807-1865) [1] which state: “At 21 his father gave him capital, mostly in livestock and by 1830 he had been granted 500 acres (202 ha) at Rylstone. In 1932 he acquired more land in partnership with William Lawson on the Liverpool Plains and about 1835 Yarraman by a deal with Bonegarley, King of Yarraman Plains” clearly Jimmy Lambert had no connection with the Liverpool Plains negotiations. If as the article says Jimmy was born about 1830 he would have been an infant at the time of the negotiations with Fitzgerald in 1835.

The location of Jimmy Lamberts Grave and Jimmy and Peggy’s ages are obscure. But some inference can be drawn from The Green Family History[2] . Written by Peggy’s G Granddaughter Madge Cowie, nee Green in 1965 Madge recounts her father (Peggy’s grandson) telling of the Dabee Massacre at Brymair in the Capertee Valley.

“We were driving to Cudgegong & few miles out of Rylstone, on the right hand side of the road he pointed to a spot and said” That is where old King Jimmy Lambert last of the Dabee Tribe is buried. If we could look at him, we would find a bullet in his leg which he got when he was in his teens.” The tribe at that time” he said, were camped in the Brymair Valley, near Rylstone, two shepherds had built a hut & yards & were minding a flock of sheep for some of the landholders. They coaxed a young Lubra into the hut & kept her there for days; she escaped to her people & the men went down, killed the shepherds, burnt the hut, & were eating the sheep for some time before a man came down to bring provisions to the shepherds. When he saw what had happened he hurried to tell his master or masters – Enraged at the loss of their men & property, they sent a detachment of soldiers down to punish the natives.

The Redcoats caught them unprepared: the blacks ordered their women & children to climb into the trees on the flat & they ran up the mountainside to the cover of rocks and trees. The soldiers knew better than to follow them into somewhere unknown to them & well known to the natives. Young Jimmy was shot in the leg as he ran up the mountain. The soldiers, balked of their revenge, turned back across the flat & shot down every woman & child hiding in the trees. Among them the young lubra, raped by the shepherds.”

Without their women they would soon die out. I have never heard mention of any native women other than (Queen Peggy who must have escaped into the bush) & her two daughters, my Grandmother, Rose & her sister Auntie (Jane ?) Rodgers. I don’t remember Auntie’s Christian name she was always known as Auntie. Peggy at this the time of the killing ‘ must have been a very young girl & the only one left to mate, later, with Jimmy. Her daughters were half-white & were probably born to her before her marriage to Jimmy.

By my reckoning the Dabee massacre occurred during the period of Marshal Law declared by Governor Brisbane in 1824 if correct than Peggy was born about 1822-3 and Jimmy 1815-1819?

Mickel answers Greg Green (question in left margin.)

As you know everyone has a different slant on history and it is best to get as close to the original material as possible. Mum (Madge Green 1901-1972) was your grand father’s sister and they were very close, she spelt his name Gerred. When his mother Francis registered his birth she spelt it Gered and I notice you spell it Gerad... Francis also reduced his father’s age by ten years. Probably because George was almost twenty-five years older than her. In fact your G Grandfather George Green (Aka Morisson Lambert) was born 11/9/1854 and died at Lithgow 21/6/1942.

Rose Green was not the daughter of Jimmy Lambert but the daughter of Peggy and a white teamster named Mr. Rose. And obviously the source of her Christian name. Jimmy and Peggy only had one child, a daughter Eileen, who died as a child.

Regarding the descendants of Queen Peggy Lambert this was collected by Len Brown and summarized in History Magazine published by the Royal Australian Historical Society in the September 2001 number 69 edition. This is available for a tiny fee plus postage. Ph. 02 92478001. Emailhistory@rahs.org.au Len brown did a fine job of researching this, however did not discover that Peggy’s two daughters were fathered by a white man surname Rose who disappeared from the scene soon after the birth of Jane. When Peggy partnered Jimmy Lambert he reared her girls and quite understandably on Jane’s dearth certificate Jimmy Lambert is named as her father.